As I told you in part 1 of this series, I've been playing some All American VP at my local, friendly casinos since the first of the year and this is an update of how it's gone to this point. The good news is that I'm making a nice profit and the bad news is, well....there really isn't any bad news, I guess. Not when you're making a profit.

As you'll see below, I've played 56 "sessions" with a session representing one day's play. Since two casinos in my area offer 25-cent All American games, I sometimes play at one casino in the morning and the other in the afternoon, but to keep this brief, I've combined the two. Session number 1 was on January 15, 2000 and session number 56 took place on May 19, 2000 so this represents about four months' play.

During that time, I've put in 241.5 hours of play which represents approximately 145,000 hands of video poker and, since I always bet $1.25 per hand, it means I've placed over $181,000 in bets. You may recall that I set aside $4000 as my 'bankroll' for this, but I haven't had to use nearly that much, primarily because I hit two Royals early on. But, as you're perusing the chart, look at session #27, where I was up by $2085 from play alone (not counting any slot club cash rebates or bonuses) and then look at session # 53 where the profit had slipped to $780. What that basically means is that I played for 124 hours and lost $1305, so those who think this is a means of earning $$$ on a consistent, predictable basis need to think again. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Most Video Poker players lose because they play low-paying games, they use an incorrect strategy and they're under-financed. On the other hand, these results are living proof that a profit can be made from this game. There's no 'bull' here; these are my actual results.

Take a look at this and I'll meet you down below for some analysis.

As you can see, my profit from play (only) is currently $1705. My slot club cash back and other cash-only bonuses total $1014 to this point. I'm not counting comps for rooms or meals or Beach Boys concert tickets or anything other than actual cold, hard cash in that total. Since that was accumulated during 241.5 hours of play, it can be said that I'm earning $4.20 an hour from the slot club and when combined with my winnings, it works out to be $11.25 an hour. Just to put this in perspective, remember that probably 90% or more of all the people who were at the casinos during this time lost. But you also need to remember that I'm "ahead of the curve" on this, since my mathematical expectation is to make about $8.00 per hour, total. Will the 'odds' catch up with me? Eventually, yes. But the "long-term" in this game is about four million hands and I've only played about 145,000.

In those 145,000 hands, I've hit 4 Royals (those are the sessions above which are marked with an "R"). That is the primary reason why I'm ahead of the game, so to speak, since mathematical expectation is for me to hit a Royal once every 43,450 hands and I'm averaging one every 36,250 hands. That is not at all unusual, since 43,450 is only an average. If I play 4,000,000 hands, it will likely work out that I hit a Royal once every 43,000 hands, but in the relative short-term, anything can happen.

The game of All American returns 100.72% for perfect play and I'm currently averaging 100.94%. Does this mean that I play the game better than perfect? No, it's just normal 'variance', assisted, undoubtedly, by the fact that I live such a clean life. (A little humor there, friends). I know through practice sessions that my speed and accuracy are picking up, but since our local games are "coin-droppers", where the player has to insert tokens until the credits build up, my pace is definitely slowed by that. I hear the Missouri Legislature is going to change the law that requires us to insert tokens and I can't wait!

Let's go back to the slot club cash for a moment. The total I've made to date is $1014 and that represents about 0.53% of all the $$$ I've bet, yet one of the slot clubs here pays 0.25% and the other pays 0.29%. I've been able to enhance that by taking advantage of double-point days and other promotions, but I haven't won any cash drawings or anything like that. For those of you who feel that the casino "knows" you're winning if you use a slot club card and can cause you to lose by throwing some sort of magic switch, I hope my experience makes you feel differently. You simply MUST join any slot clubs where you play and always use your card because the $$$ you can make are too important to pass up.

So, what conclusions can be drawn from this? Well, I think it's fair to say that someone who can put in 20 or 30 hours a week at this game can create for themselves a nice part-time job. Because of my responsibilities here and other "gaming activities", I'm getting in only about 15 hours of play each week, on average, but that's been worth about $170 per, and to tell you the truth, it's a lot of fun.

See you here next time.

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